When you’re short on money or time, you can’t be a softy, and when it’s time to build a learning experience on a shoestring, you will need to be absolutely ruthless. What does that mean? It means you might have to cut content from the learning program that you or the SME are emotionally attached to.
How does the thought of being ruthless make you feel? Uncomfortable? Like you’re being a jerk? That makes sense, but it doesn’t have to mean that.
Being ruthless when it comes to instructional design means feeling comfortable setting boundaries and saying no when there is a suggestion or an idea that doesn’t align with the agreed-upon priorities, objectives, or outcomes. That doesn’t make you a jerk. Isn’t it better to be polite, yet firm, than to agree to things that will bloat your training program and sink its effectiveness?
In addition, remember, being ruthless doesn’t always mean saying no to others.
Often, you have to say no to yourself too.
Think you have a clever activity that might be fun? Think the learners might appreciate additional history or theory behind something? Sometimes the answer to these questions is just “no.”
Don’t misjudge your audience and what they need from the training, or else you might have to rebuild your session when you barely had the resources to build it once. On a shoestring, every idea needs to be challenged and to do that, you must be ruthless.
This article is an adaptation of content from Instructional Design on a Shoestring by Brian Washburn, published by ATD Press. Used with permission.
How Ruthless Are You?
It is a great exercise to evaluate your own ruthlessness. As part of my book “Instructional Design on a Shoestring” I created a quiz to help you evaluate your own ruthlessness. Sign up below and I’ll send you the quiz in a PDF.
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